Enhancements and BADIs

1. What are the different ways in which you can make changes to SAP standard software ?

Customizing 

Enhancements to the SAP Standard

Modifications to the SAP Standard

Customer Development

2. What is customizing?
Customizing is the setting of system parameters via SAP's own interface.

3. Why do you need enhancements?

The standard applications do not offer some of the functionality you need. The R/3 enhancement concept allows you

to add your own functionality to SAP's standard business applications. 

4. What are the different types of enhancements?

Enhancements using customer exits

Customers' potential requirements which are not included in the standard software are incorporated in the standard

as empty modification 'shells'. Customers can then fill these with their own coding. Enhancements can relate to

programs, menus and screens. Upward compatibility is assured. In other words, SAP guarantees that the jump from the

standard software to the exit and the interface which call the exit will remain valid in future releases.

Enhancements to ABAP/4 Dictionary elements

These are ABAP/4 Dictionary enhancements (creation of table appends), text enhancements (customer-specific key

words and documentation for data elements) and field exits (creation of additional coding for data elements).

5. What is customer development?

Creating customer-specific objects within the customer name range.

6. What is SSCR?

SSCR (SAP Software Change Registration) is a procedure, for registering all manual changes to SAP source coding and

SAP Dictionary objects.

7. What is the difference between modifications and enhancements?

Modifications mean making changes to the SAP standard functionality.

Enhancements mean adding some functionality to SAP standard functionality.

8. What are the disadvantages of modification?

Modifying standard code can lead to errors

Modifications mean more work during software upgrades

9. What are the advantages of enhancements?

Do not affect standard SAP source code

Do not affect software upgrades

10. When do you opt for modification?

Customer exits are not available for all programs and screens within the R/3 standard applications. You can only

use exits if they already exist within the SAP R/3 System. Otherwise you have to opt for modifications.

11. What are the various types of customer exits?

Menu exits

Screen exits

Function module exits

Keyword exits

12. What is a menu exit?

Adding items to the pull-down menus in standard R/3 applications.

13. What is a screen exit ?

Adding fields to the screens within R/3 applications. SAP creates screen exits by placing special sub screen areas


within a standard R/3 screen and calling a customer sub screen from within the standard dynpro's flow logic.

14. What is a function module exit?

Adding functionality to R/3 applications. Function module exits play a role in both menu and screen exits.

15. What is a keyword exit?

Add documentation to the data elements of key words defined in the ABAP/4 Dictionary. The system displays this

documentation whenever a user presses F1 to get online help for a screen field.

16. How does SAP organize its exits?

SAP organizes its exits in packages that are called SAP enhancements. Each SAP enhancement can contain many

individual exits.

17. What is an add-on project?

To take advantage of the exits available within standard R/3 applications, you need to create an add-on project.

This project lets you organize the enhancement packages and exits you want to use. The add-on project also allows

you to hang add-on functionality onto the exit hooks contained with SAP enhancements. 

Q1: What is the reason for using ENHANCEMENTS?

Ans: Normal programs don’t give us all the functionalities we may need, so to fix this we can use the R/3 enhancements that will permit us to insert our particular functionality to any normal SAP program.

Q2: What is the meaning of customer development?

A2: Customer development generates objects particular to the customers in their name range.

Q3: What weaknesses do we find when using MODIFICATION?

A3: One of the weaknesses is that we could have errors when standard code is modified. This automatically leads to a higher amount of work when software upgrades are made.

Q4: Why should we choose to make MODIFICATIONS?

A4: Customer exits don’t exist in every screen and program from R/3, and because they can be used just if they are already existing in SAP R/3, sometimes we must choose to make modifications.

Q5: What is the meaning of a SCREEN EXIT?

A5: Screen exits means to add fields to R/3 screens, SAP generates screen exits by deploying particular subscreen areas in a normal R/3 screen and then invoking customer subscreens from the normal flow logic of dynpro.

Q6: What is the way in which exit organizing is made by SAP?

A6: Organizing exit packages of SAP is also found under the name of SAP enhancements and every SAP enhancement can have several particular exits.

Q7: What is the meaning of USER EXITS, how are they written and which measures do we have to take for prevention?

A7: In the default standards of SAP we can find the user defined functionalities, we can find a Sap program in which a customer personal program may be invoked. Unlike customer exits. user exits can permit the developers to enter and change the parts of the program and also the objects. When upgrade is made , every user exit has to be verified for conformation to the standard system. The user exits can use INCLUDES, case in which Customizing makes the management. We have to search for those customer enhancements from a specific development class.

Q8: Can we classify the ENHANCEMENTS by type?

A8: Yes they can be classified in:

a) enhancements that use customer exits and

b)enhancements of the elements in the ABAP/4 Dictionary.

a)      The standard software doesn’t incorporate all the requirements of the customer, but they can be contained as empty ‘shells’ that can be changed by the customers by inserting their personal codes. The enhancements can refer to menus, screens or programs, the compatibility being assured. This means that in SAP guarantees that the compatibility will be maintained even when passing from standard software to exit and the interface invoking the exit (they will be kept for future versions too).

b)      These are enhancements like table appends or text enhancements or field exits (supplementary coding for data elements).                        

Q9: What is the meaning of SSCR?

A9: The SAP Software Change Registration or SSCR is the operational that makes possible the registration of every manual change of the SAP source coding and objects of SAP Dictionary.

Q10: What are the strong features of Enhancements?

A10: They don’t have an impact on the standard source code of SAP, they don’t have an impact on software upgrades.

Q11: Which are the main types of CUSTOMER EXITS?

A11: The main types of customer exits are: the screen exits, the menu exits, the function module exits and the keyword exits.

Q12: What is the meaning of FUNCTION MODULE EXIT?

A12: The function module exit is meting supplementary functionality in R/3 programs having a big role in the menu exits and the screen exits.

Q13: What is the meaning of an add-on project?

A13: For using in the best way the exits we find in the standard R/3 programs we have to make an add-on project, that makes possible organizing the enhancement packs and the exits we desire to use. An add-on project makes possible to met add-on functionality on the texts from the SAP enhancements.

Q14: What is the meaning of a keyword exit?

A14: With a keyword exit we can give to the data elements of the keywords from the ABAP/4 dictionary some documentation. This documentation will be shown by the system every time users hit the F1 key for obtaining help online regarding a screen field.

Q15: What is the meaning of a MENU EXIT?

A15: Menu exits mean when we add item on the pull-down menus.

Q16: How can we separate ENHANCEMENTS from MODIFICATIONS?

A16: When we create modifications on the functionality of the SAP standard we say modifications. When we put supplementary functionality on the standard functionality of SAP we say enhancements.

Q17: What is the meaning of CUSTOMIZING?

A17: When we configure the system parameters through the SAP interface we mean customizing.

A18: How can we classify the methods in which we generate modifications in the standard software of SAP?

A18: We can make: enhancements to the standard of SAP, modifications to the standard of SAP, customizing and customer development.

Implicit Enhancement:

In implicit they are available at the beginning of subroutines defined in the standard reports.
Edit-> Enhancement operations->show implicit enhancement options.
This will highlight all the implicit enhancements in the report.

In Explicit enhancement we have two different types of enhancements -
Enhancement point and Enhancement section.

Enhancement point - SAP has some standard functionality defined for a report , but it may be required that you'll need to add your own code. In this case the code that you'll add will be executed along with the standard code.

Enhancement section - SAP has its standard functionality defines but it may not suit your requirement, in that case you may need to add your code and you'll need that code to be executed only. By this method the existing code is automatically commented and a copy of the same code is available to edit.
After executing the report only your code will be executed and the standard code will be bypassed.

Enhancement Spot:

The enhancement spots are used to manage explicit enhancement options. Enhancement spots carry information about the positions at which enhancement options were created. One enhancement spot can manage several enhancement options of a Repository object. 

For example, when editing an ABAP program with the ABAP Editor, you can define explicit enhancement options in the form of the ENHANCEMENT-POINT statement

A simple enhancement spot is always assigned to exactly one enhancement technology (ABAP source code enhancement or BAdI).

Composite enhancement spots are used for the semantic grouping of simple enhancement spots. A composite enhancement spot contains either one or more simple enhancement spots and/or one or more composite enhancement spots of the relevant type. You can use composite enhancement spots to combine simple enhancement spots into meaningful units

 

IMPLICIT ENHANCEMENT:
Implicit enhancement points are basically points within ABAP code where an enhancement point is implied, and in which case can be created. Examples of implicit enhancement points are at the beginning and end of FORM’s, at the end of a program, include or function module etc. Below is a step by step demonstration of how to create and implicit enhancement point.

Step 1 - Activate the enhancement functionality
Within SE80 open up the program/include you want to enhance and click on the enhancement button (show below)




Step 2 - Enhancement functionality activated
The SE80 screen will now look something like below!




Step 3 - Show implict enhancement points
Goto menu 'edit->Enhamcement Operations->Show Implicit Enhancement Options' to display implicit enhancement points within the ABAP code




Step 4 - Enhancement points with the code
Once you have done this you will be able to see all the implicit enhancement points available within you code, these are denoted by the line of quotation marks and the black arrow at the start. In this example there are enhancement points at the start and end of each form and one at the very end of the include.





Step 5 - Create an implicit enhamcement point
Inorder to implement an implicit enhancement point simply right click on the required enhamcement point and select 'Enhancement Implementation->create'.




Step 6 - Enhamcement point type
Next click on the code button to create a code implementation



Step 7 - Name and description
Next give the enhancement point a name and description. Click the green tick




Step 8 - Change request
Assign change to a change request in the usual way




Step 9 - Enhancement point created
The enhamcement point will now have been created in the appropriate place. Denoted by the ENHANCEMENT...ENDENHANCEMENT tags




Step 10 - Enter code into enhancement
You can now enter your own code into the enhancement point!




Step 11 - Activate the enhancement point
Click the 'Activate Enhancements' button to activate it.


Step 12 - Turn enhancement mode off
Now click the 'Active <-> inactive' button to turn enhancement mode off and return to standard SE80